


Growing Pains

by LinneaKou



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Adolescence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Insecurity, Post-Series Pre-Movie, growth spurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 23:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14725541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinneaKou/pseuds/LinneaKou
Summary: Puberty hits Yuri Plisetsky like a ton of bricks. Or rock solid ice after a failed quad Sal.





	Growing Pains

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the YOI Litmag project. Beta'd by the ever-patient [Gabapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabapple/pseuds/gabapple).
> 
> Issue 0, _"Beginnings"_

Yuri refuses to let anyone sign the cast.

“You’re such a mood-killer,” his ballet friend Lesya says, flopping on the floor next to his bed. “It’s cute to sign it with get-well wishes.”

“Yeah, until someone puts ‘eat shit and die’ in permanent marker,” Yuri grumbles, struggling to re-adjust himself atop the bedspread. The two-kilo cast is an unfamiliar weight, and he hates having to hobble around with the help of a crutch, so he doesn’t leave his bedroom all that often. Lilia has to help him wrap the cast in plastic if he wants to take a shower, and Yakov already had a _shower chair_ on hand. It’s only been a little over a week since the cast was put on, and Yuri’s ready for it to come off _now_.

“Who would do that?” Lesya asks, fiddling with one of the plush cats that Yuri had gotten after the SP in Skate America.

“I have enemies,” Yuri grumbles, and Lesya snorts.

“You have _competition_ ,” she corrects him, popping her head up over the edge of the mattress. “And everyone supports each other. Why would anyone be mean to you about this?”

Yuri makes a face at her. “Because I’m one of the top skaters in the world?”

“Good grief, Yura.”

“I’m serious, I shit talk people all the time. I’m sure a ton of them would _love_ to return the favor.”

Lesya’s eyes narrow. “Maybe stop shit-talking people?”

“I’d rather stop breathing,” Yuri says, throwing a pillow at her. She topples backwards onto the rug with a squawk.

They goof around for a little bit longer, and play Mario Kart on Lesya’s Switch until she has to leave for dinner with her family. She vows to sign his cast when he least expects it, and Yuri flips her off as she heads out.

Lesya had delivered a card of well-wishes from the rest of her ballet class, a giant balloon bouquet, and a grocery store bag filled with candy that Lilia had confiscated as soon as Yuri had opened it. If Yuri wants to steal some chocolate, he’ll have to limp to the kitchen and search for the bag. He’s starting to get hungry enough to consider it, but then his cat curls up on his chest and he decides that Potya’s comfort outweighs his own. That, and if he displaces her before she’s ready, she’ll ignore him for at least a day before she forgives him.

Lilia, however, doesn’t care about Potya’s favor. When she comes in to drag Yuri down to dinner, she picks the cat up and drops her on the bed, ignoring Potya’s protests. “You are not eating in here,” Lilia says. “I’ve allowed it for two days. It’s time to rejoin the outside world.”

Yuri doesn’t argue, because Lilia would drag him out by his ear and probably not bother grabbing his crutch if he tried to sass her. He’s got a hairline fracture at his ankle, and he wants to keep it that way until it heals.

She waits until he’s got the crutch under his arm before leading him out of his room, and Yuri grimaces every time the crutch scrapes the carpet.

. . .

The Trophée de France is depressing to watch, considering that Yuri had been slated to skate in it. He hate-watches it with the help of Match Arena, and Potya basks in the sunlight streaming in from the window. Yakov had pulled the drapes open that morning and pronounced Yuri in need of sunlight and fresh air. Yuri had shut the window again once Yakov had left, but left the drapes drawn.

He’s moved to his desk, carefully balanced on his swivel chair, and annoyedly refreshes the stream again when the picture freezes.

There are a couple Russian skaters in pairs and one in ladies’ singles, but none of them his rinkmates. Mens’ singles has a pretty boring lineup compared to Skate Canada and Rostelecom, but Yuri recognizes Kenjirou Minami from the summer adventure in Hasetsu. He’s gotten taller, at least as far as Yuri can tell, and changed the accent color in his hair to teal. Kenji skates a pretty high-energy SP, but still manages to flub two of his jumps.

Yuri can relate.

With every handful of centimeters added to his height, he resents the onslaught of adolescence more and more. He had thought at one point that he might just become dependant on painkillers to deal with the aches in his bones as his arms and legs lengthened and became unreliable. Sometimes he forgets how far his reach is becoming, and he knocks things over. Mila has stopped teasing him at this point, and just pats him in sympathy. It pisses him off.

Kenji looks like he’s having the same problems; he loses his footing, oversteps himself like Yuri is becoming used to doing. He’d confided in Yuri over the summer that he had been worried that his growth spurt had missed him entirely, but it’s looking like he’s just a late bloomer.

Yuri wonders if Kenji regrets wishing for his growth spurt.

Watching the Japanese skater pick himself up off the ice for the last time, Yuri thinks back to his failed Salchow in Skate America and how angry Yakov had been when Yuri had been pulled off the ice by MP’s and settled in the infirmary.

“How many times will I have to tell you not to push yourself?”

But Yuri hadn’t wanted to give in. He could land a Salchow, he’d done it before. He wasn’t going to let a few additional centimeters take away one of his best jumps.

Then the X-rays had come back, and Yuri almost cried when the doctor pointed out the tiniest break right near the joint of his ankle. Lilia and Yakov had pretended not to notice.

Kenji manages to finish his SP, and his scores aren’t really all that great. He seems determined to keep going, though. He even does an anime-typical fist clench gesture in the kiss-and-cry. He reminds Yuri of a meme.

Yuri checks the competition hashtag on Twitter, and the first tweet that greets him is from the Katsudon. It’s in Japanese, but when Yuri hits ‘translate’ he sees that it’s congratulations for Kenji, even if the translation is absolute crap.

Kenji will be happy, though. If the Katsudon even _breathes_ in his general direction, he ascends to another plane of existence. Gross.

The skater from Spain takes the ice next, and Yuri loses interest but forces himself to keep watching. The Spanish guy manages a fairly decent SP with a clean skate, but he doesn’t have any quads. It’s enough to keep his technical score high but he’s definitely got to work on his performance if he wants to break the triple digits.

The last skater is JJ, and Yuri almost closes the stream down before he manages to talk himself out of it. The Canadian asshole has improved even more from the previous year, and easily takes first place after his SP. He’s followed closely by Emil Nekola in second, and a French skater in third. Yuri could have beaten them all if it weren’t for the stupid fracture.

The stupid Salchow.

The stupid _growth spurt_.

He closes down the stream and then navigates away from Twitter. He doesn’t want to see people talking about the competition or the Grand Prix series or even skating in general. Instead, he ends up watching all of Within Temptation’s music videos on Youtube.

After he’s gone through the band’s entire channel, his suggestions fill up with other symphonic metal bands. He’s halfway through Nightwish’s offerings when the music suddenly shifts away from metal and into weird folk music.

He hates it. He navigates away from the song he’d been halfway through and finds someone else to listen to. _I didn’t know rock bands could go through musical puberty_.

Yuri settles on, ironically, a creepy new-wave band from Canada and spends the rest of the afternoon on Tumblr, scrolling through the _Game of Thrones_ tag. He’s only seen bits of the show, but Mila is obsessed with it and texts him about it all the time. Apparently she and Georgi are premiere buddies, and Georgi streams the new episodes on his giant TV for wild viewing parties.

Yuri concedes that the dragons _are_ pretty cool. Maybe he can convince Lilia to let him use some of the musical score from the show, and do a dragon-themed SP. He could probably trick Yakov into thinking the music is some kind of contemporary classical music, but Lilia probably would know it’s from a TV show. The woman is either psychic or secretly a fan of American-based TV shows.

Yuri ends up on a Skyrim blog and starts nodding off when he realizes that the sun is setting, and he hauls himself back to bed with his tablet. Halfway through the Amaranthe playlist, he falls asleep until Lilia shows up with a tray of tea.

. . .

Mila and Georgi show up later on in the week with secret care packages filled with sweets, and Mila helpfully stashes them under Yuri’s bed. Georgi’s gift is a weird wooden back-scratcher, which he slyly reveals is actually so that Yuri can tug his candy bounty out from its hiding place.

“Great,” Yuri says sourly. “Thanks. You can go now.”

Mila and Georgi exchange exasperated looks. “You know, Yura,” Georgi starts to say, “Vitya and I both went through growth spurts too--”

“Get the hell out,” Yuri growls.

His rinkmates are too used to his bad moods to be offended. “Listen,” Mila insists. “When you’re back on the ice, we’ll help you get your balance again. We’ve all been there.”

Yuri sneers at her, but then yells when she uncaps a pink permanent marker and makes for his cast. “Don’t you _dare!_ ”

He’s not successful at all, because Mila gets her hands on the cast and he can’t shake her off without possibly aggravating his injury. Or, at least, he’s too afraid to. _I will_ not _cripple myself over a stupid cast!_

Mila draws an ugly cartoon kitty on his shin. “He’s roaring,” she says proudly. “Ta-da!”

“Great, now piss off,” Yuri pleads, but then Mila is stepping aside and Georgi has a green marker.

Georgi’s cat drawing is a little better, but not by much. “It’s a panther,” he informs Yuri. “Like that one superhero movie.”

Yuri flops back against his pillows. “Are you done?”

“Yeah, don’t worry,” Mila says. “We’re done. Enjoy the noms.”

They don’t stick around long, and head off to do fun stuff on their off day. Yuri ends up playing a _Space Invaders_ knockoff on his tablet for a while until it chimes with an incoming FaceTime call.

It’s Otabek. Yuri answers almost right away.

“Hey, how’re you holding up?” Beka is clearly at his home rink, judging by the posters behind him.

“Bored,” Yuri complains, blowing a bit of his bangs out of his face. “I hate being grounded.”

“Well, if you stay put and heal, you’ll be ungrounded sooner.”

And dammit, but he’s right. Yuri pouts, and Beka laughs at him.

“Hey,” the Kazakh skater’s eyes soften. “So. The Salchow, huh?”

Yuri winces.

“You know, this isn’t going to be forever,” Beka points out. “You _will_ land that quad again.”

“What if I don’t?” Yuri hates how weak and scared he sounds, but he doesn’t see a point in trying to pretend he isn’t. “Yakov keeps telling me I’ll learn again, but what if I _can’t?_ ”

“I highly doubt that you won’t, but you still have many years ahead of you. You don’t need quads to medal.”

“Bullshit,” Yuri says. “You know that’s not true.”

Beka sighs. “It’s not common, but if anyone can do it, you can.”

“I… any strengths I ever had before, it was because I hadn’t started puberty yet,” Yuri argues, and he has no idea why he’s fighting against Beka’s attempts to comfort him.

“It’s all just part of growing up,” Beka says.

Yuri isn’t in the mood for the reminder of the inevitability of his body breaking and rearranging into something foreign and unfamiliar, something he has no idea how to work with. “Fuck growing up,” he mutters instead.

Beka snorts. “Well, I suppose you don’t have to worry about rent or bills if you’re a kid.”

“Your life is _so_ hard.”

“You’ll find out eventually,” Beka says, and changes the subject to something stupid his local friends had done the last time they’d gone out clubbing. They chat about stuff that is specifically _not_ skating until Beka’s alloted time for lunch is over and he has to go back on the ice. They sign off, and Yuri feels a little bit better.

. . .

A few days later, and _they_ finally show up.

Katsudon is looking cheerful after his gold at Skate Canada, and Viktor had skated in Rostelecom and easily claimed gold as well. They’re both slated to skate at the NHK trophy in a week, which should be interesting.

“We’re so sorry we couldn’t stop by earlier,” Viktor sings out, and it pisses Yuri off immediately.

“You should be more mobile by now,” Katsudon says. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. You can go now.”

“But we just got here!” Viktor steps up to beside Yuri’s bed, beaming down at him. “And we brought treats!”

“Viktor made empanadas,” Katsudon adds helpfully.

Yuri gives them a distrustful look. “He… _made_ them?”

“By hand!” Viktor says proudly. “I had a recipe, of course, but I think they turned out well!”

“Yeah, great,” Yuri answers, his face probably betraying his skepticism. “You’re taking the first bite.”

“We had them a couple days ago,” Katsudon reassures him. “No food poisoning.”

“I would have thought you would do all the cooking in your household,” Yuri says, making a face at the Japanese skater.

“We trade off,” Viktor informs him. “We’re both learning new dishes, though. You should come by and try some of it, it’s all diet-appropriate! Yakov approved, even.”

“No thanks.”

“I _dare_ you,” Katsudon says dryly. “C’mon, time to get up. Lilia-sama said you need to get up and eat in the kitchen.”

“Make me,” Yuri challenges them, and then blanches when the older skaters exchange determined expressions and stoop down to seize either of his arms and haul him out of bed. He makes sure to howl the whole time, but Viktor sticks his crutch under his arm and they both shepherd him out of his bedroom. When he looks over his shoulder, he sees Potya curling up in his vacated spot.

For some reason, it infuriates Yuri that they make it downstairs to Lilia’s kitchen without any incidents. Viktor’s already popped the frozen empanadas into the oven, and he checks them as soon as Yuri is seated at the table.

Yuri gets a whiff of the empanadas when Viktor pops the oven open, and he cannot deny that they smell pretty good.

“I’m sure you’ve gotten this from literally everyone,” Katsudon says, settling in the chair next to Yuri’s, “but we all do really mean it. We’re all willing to help you get your balance back.”

“Don’t,” Yuri grits out, but Katsudon is undeterred.

“Yurio,” he insists, “I remember getting my growth spurt. Viktor does, too. Yakov helped all of your rinkmates through this stuff. We’re all here for you.”

“I don’t need your help,” Yuri snaps.

“Yes, you do.” Katsudon remains impassive. “You’re going to be getting really tall, Yurio. I can already tell.”

Yuri is tempted to whack him over the head with his crutch.

“They’re done!” Viktor cheers, grabbing the oven mitts so he can pull his empanadas out of the oven.

“Turn the oven off,” Katsudon reminds him, and Viktor sticks his tongue out at his fiancé.

“I know what I’m doing, _Yuu_ ri.”

Katsudon smiles indulgently at his coach-slash-competitor, and it makes Yuri want to barf.

Viktor plates his empanadas and puts one down in front of Yuri, handing him a fork. “Try it. I dare you.”

“I don’t do just anything for a dare, old man,” Yuri mutters.

Katsudon is already digging into his own empanada, and he doesn’t seem to be dying. Yuri hasn’t eaten in hours, so… maybe it would be okay to bite into his…

He’s shocked when it’s… _good_. Mildly spicy, with juicy meat and some vegetable he can’t identify.

“Told you,” Viktor says smugly.

“Okay, so you can cook,” Yuri mutters. “Yay for you.”

Viktor beams.

“So, about what I was saying earlier,” Katsudon says, and Yuri glares at him.

“Screw you.”

“Yura!” Viktor frowns at him. “I thought you wanted to beat us in competition.”

Yuri freezes. “I _will_ beat you in competition,” he says, his voice dropping to a growl. “No hairline fracture will change that.”

“Well,” Katsudon says airily. “I’m looking for an actual challenge. How can I possibly have an actual challenge if you can’t land your Salchow?”

Yuri goes scarlet and utterly speechless. His fork clatters to the table. “Are… are you seriously offering to teach me how to land my Salchow again?” he demands once he’s got his words back.

“I mean, only if you want us to,” Viktor plays along, which pisses Yuri off even more.

“I don’t need your help!”

“Yes you do,” Viktor immediately answers.

Yuri clenches his fists on the hardwood tabletop, fighting the urge to swing at Viktor’s stupid smug face.

“Yurio, we wouldn’t offer if we didn’t think you could do it,” Katsudon says.

“Everyone keeps _saying_ that!” Yuri bursts out, and he’d be storming out of the kitchen if he could. “I’m so sick of it, _god_!”

Viktor and Katsudon exchange worried looks. “Yura,” Viktor says gently. “You’re going to make it through this. So many others have done so, why would you think you wouldn’t as well?”

Yuri narrows his eyes at them. “ _Please_ , don’t tell me you wouldn’t be relieved if I lost all my quads due to growth spurts.”

“We wouldn’t be,” Katsudon insists, and… he looks like he’s being honest. Yuri’s not sure what to do with that. “Yurio, you’ve got so much potential. You’re the next generation. This is just the beginning of your skating career.”

“I’d stand in your way of your _five_ gold medals,” Yuri reminds him.

“Yes, you would. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Katsudon’s eyes don’t leave Yuri’s face. “C’mon, Yurio. You’d miss beating me on the ice all the time.”

Yuri slumps forward. “I hate you both.”

“Sure you do,” Viktor answers lightly. “And when that cast comes off, we’ll be ready to help you get back into quad shape.”

“It’s a promise,” Katsudon agrees.

“I don’t need your help!” Yuri snaps again.

If he’s being honest, though, he knows that’s not true. Besides, they clearly aren’t going to listen to him anyway.

When they leave for the night, Katsudon pulls a stuffed animal from his bag and presses it into Yuri’s arms. “You didn’t get to go to the Trophée de France, but you would have gotten gold. Just a reminder, okay?” He winks, and they let themselves out.

Yuri looks down at the Hello Kitty plush in his hands. She’s cute and dressed in a frilly nurse costume. He hates how much he loves it. “Stupid Katsudon,” he grumbles, hugging the plush to his chest.

And even though Viktor presses him about it later, he refuses to admit that the plush is still in his collection even after the cast comes off. _Still_ , he thinks as he begins his PT, _I have to catch back up._

It’ll be worth it, though.

_It will._

**Author's Note:**

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